City of Broken Hearts
by AutumnBlade
Summary: Legend tells of a key that can seal the barrier between dimensions, a key that would keep humans safe forever but make Shadowhunters obsolete. Valentine is searching for it after he gets word that it is sealed within Clary's heart. *After City of Bones*
1. Chapter the First

Mortal Instruments FanFiction: City of Broken Hearts

SPOILERS* If you haven't yet completed City of Bones, then don't read *SPOILERS

Dream

There was an odd feeling in Clary's right shoulder, like an enormous weight was pushing down on her, crushing her bones into packets of dust. And then there was that awful surge of aching in her chest, a scouring hurt, as if her heart had been ripped from her ribcage by claws. She coughed, expelling a stream of blood, and tried to sit up. The pain her shoulder and chest intensified until she finally had to collapse back to the concrete. The cement floor was so cold it made her skin tingle, numb.…

"Where is it?" A voice like venom, like a stream of poison acid, gurgled somewhere in the darkness.

Clary's eyes flew open. The room was a mask of shadows, every corner was enveloped in impenetrable blackness. She coughed again, dryly this time, so dry it scraped her throat.

"I said where is it?" The voice was a bellow echoing off the walls and escalating the pulsing in Clary's head.

"Where is what?" her voice was hoarse with disuse.

Where was she? She blinked and raised her left hand, careful not to put too much pressure on her right arm as she propped herself up. The skin of her hand was barely visible in the dark, but it was easy to see that it was coated in something dark and wet. Panicked, Clary touched her chest and looked at her palm again. Blood.

"Where am I?" she asked with a touch of urgency. She held her hand against her chest as if to keep the blood inside her.

The voice was a hail of intimidating needles in her mind. "I will ask the questions, daughter of Lord Valentine," It hissed. "Now, where is the key?"

Clary blinked again and sat up, wincing at the pain that curled harder against her lungs. She could barely breath; every intake of air was agonizing.

"Key?" she coughed again.

"The key to lock dimensions. The gate keeper's solace. The key from the dreams of the Angel."

Clary struggled to her knees, which she discovered via the sharp pain that exploded over her skin, were scraped. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

The stranger growled. It was a demon, she concluded. It had to be. Clary's knees shook violently as she rose to her feet. The ground was slick with blood.

"Do not rise, daughter of he who casts no shadow."

"Where am I? Tell me where I am and what you want with me." She ordered.

A sickening slithering sound reached her ears. "You are _here_. And what I want with you is the key."  
>Clary's right hand clenched into a shaking fist. "I don't have any key. Now let me go."<p>

The thing laughed in a gurgled voice like boiling water. "The key was suppose to reside within you. Within your heart. But I have searched meticulously and it could not be produced. I am concluding that it was removed. Where have you placed it?"

Clary ran her tongue across the surface of her teeth and tasted the metallic iron of blood. "I wasn't aware of any _key_." She said mockingly. "Maybe you should tell Valentine too get his facts straight."

The thing roared. "You will not speak of Lord Valentine with anything less that reverie in my presence."

"Sorry," Clary's voice was still mocking. "But whose presence am I in exactly?"

"That," it answered firmly. "Is no concern of yours. Now tell me where the key is or I will be forced to use less savory ways of _making_ you tell me."

Clary's heart stuttered painfully, but she didn't allow her apprehension to stagger her voice. "You can torture me if you want, but you won't get me to tell you something that I don't know."

"Very well." The thing slithered further into the darkness. She could hear the sweeping sound it's form retreating.

Clary fell back to the ground, unable to stand once her adrenaline supply and anger had been exhausted. Her heart beat was broken, a murmured tick that was out of time. She was dying, she realized with a shock of cold fear. But they wouldn't allow her to die just yet, not without trying to extract what they wanted from her. The location of the key. But Clary knew nothing of a key, a key that the thing had said would lock dimensions. Her eyes suddenly felt strained, overused, and her breath was slowing. She was very close to death. She would die here in mysterious, freezing darkness without ever seeing her mother awake. Or Jace. The thought was so unbearable.

"What are you doing here, warlock boy. Leave now or die." The thing was speaking again, somewhere further off, but not to her. Clary tried to listen, but her hearing was fading. The sounds of their voices seemed to be under water, submerged in her fading consciousness.

"I've come for Clary of course."

_Who came for me? Who is this? _The voice was unfamiliar.

There was a horrible hissing sound that rang loudly through Clary's foggy mind. Then a metallic grating—a sword freeing itself from a hard sheath—and a cry of pain so loud and unnatural that Clary cringed despite herself.

Footsteps resonated somewhere, growing louder as the distance between her and them became shorter. Then there was a voice, directly overhead. "Clary?"

Clary groaned very softly.

"Thank God you're alive." The boy said with a palpable relief. His hands were underneath her, lifting. Clary cried out in pain. Her shoulder started to throb.

"Sorry," he said gently. Then they were moving. Clary's eyes were still closed.

"Who are you?" she asked in a whisper, using up her last breath.

"Knight," the boy answered.

_Knight, a warlock. The knight in the darkness?..._ her mind faded into blankness as she felt the beautiful warmth of light touch her cheeks.

Chapter 1

_For the devil has no power except in the dark –Dorothea, Lady of the Haven._

Clary opened her eyes and screamed.

The strange face winced and recoiled, falling back as Clary sat up.

"I have sensitive ears you know," the man commented. He rubbed his left ear and stepped away from the bed.

Clary looked at him. A black-haired teenager with musical blue and green streaks that swirled melodically through his spiked hair. His eyes were a shocking lavender, a mirror of the blossom's color in early spring, and his mouth was set into a line of pain.

She glanced downward. She was sitting in a bed over stocked with pillows and blankets. The room surrounding her was painted with vertical gray and black stripes and a low chandelier with onyx crystals dangled from the center of the ceiling.

"Where am I? Who are you? What happened?"

"You're in the Bronx, at my flat. I'm Knight Walker, and you were taken by Fiends. In that order."

Clary blinked and stared at him. "Knight?"

_The knight in the darkness_. Her mind echoed its final thoughts before everything had gone black. "You saved me." She realized.

She looked down at her chest, covered in an oversized T-shirt that was not her own, and felt the stiff fabric of bandages binding her down to her waist. Knight appeared embarrassed.

"Maya did that." He mumbled with a fair blush coating his face.

Clary looked up at him again, noticing for the first time the enormous bat wings that framed his figure. The slick appearance of them, like car tarp, was eerie.

"I was bleeding, and I was about to die, but I'm not dead." Clary mused, mostly to herself.

Knight chewed his bottom lip and nodded. "It took a lot of magic to keep you alive until I got here. Maya nearly choked to death when she saw you."

"Who's Maya?"

"My cousin," he said faintly, looking off to the side as if her were contemplating something different entirely. "So, where did you hide the key?" he finally asked. His purple eyes were shining with eagerness.

"The key?" she asked slowly, feeling something in the back of her mind bubble forth. _The key from the dreams of the Angel. _Her heart dropped into her stomach as she realized, "You want this key thing too? I have no _idea_ what key you people are talking about!"

Knight seemed surprised. "You don't? Really? I thought you were just saying that for the sake of that demon."

Clary glared at him. "No." her voice was tight.

Knight chewed his lip again. "Interesting. I wonder where it is…" he trailed off.

A girl came in then and Clary's attention shifted to her. She would have been beautiful, a pure gorgeousness that rivaled Isabel's, if she weren't so tragically maimed. Her face was clawed on both sides, red lines running from the corners of her eyes across her cheeks. Her neck was in a similar condition, crimson gashes crisscrossed her jugular. Clary wondered what had happened to her. But for all her deformities, she was still stunning. Deep blond curls bounced around her shoulders and wondering, green eyes assessed her with curiosity.

"Maya," Knight said in surprise, as if he hadn't been expecting her.

"I came to see if she was alright." The girl's voice was high and soothing, motherly.

Knight waved a ring-clad hand at her dismissively. "She's fine, but she doesn't appear to know anything about the key."

Clary was perfectly fed up with being ignorant. It made her feel small. "What is this key everyone is sputtering on about?"

Maya looked at her with grave eyes. "You don't know…"

Knight continued for her. "About the key? I suppose that's to be expected in a sense. Most Shadowhunters think it's a legend anyway."

Clary bristled at the mention of Shadowhunters. "What is this all about?"

Maya and Knight looked at each other. Knight sighed and pulled an ornately carved chair from a mahogany desk set against the far wall and sat in it backwards, facing her. His purple eyes glittered with the weary tale he had balanced on his tongue.

"Legend tells of a key that has the power to seal the door between worlds, stopping the demons who seep through. The key would allow for Shadowhunters to control the barriers of worlds, but it is a double edged sword. If the barriers were sealed and no more demons plagued the earths of which they did not belong, Shadowhunters themselves would become obsolete. It made the key greatly craved and greatly feared.

"But many believe it as a legend; the key from the dreams of the Angel. The key that could save one race but destroy another. It didn't appear as if any such key existed, so people ignored the tale which was nicknamed 'the only legend with no truth'. Valentine didn't disregard the legend, though. He searched tirelessly for the key, seeing it as a powerful weapon that he could use not just to seal barriers, but to _forge_ a barrier in this world. A barrier between humans and Downworlders.

"After he finally got hold of it, stealing it from its sanctuary, a hold under Idris, he entrusted it to his wife, who at the time was still beside him. But when she fled Idris, she took the key with her and asked a warlock to place it within the heart of her child after it was born. Valentine guessed as much and sent demons after you when he had confirmed you had the key inside your heart."

Clary stared at him. Her mind was reeling. She had a legendary key inside her? She touched her chest subconsciously, feeling the rigid bandages encasing her torso.

"But it doesn't appear to be in you now. That demon opened your chest, it wasn't there."

Clary let her hand fall, feeling the ghost of air brushing her exposed insides. She shivered.

Maya, who was standing nearby, placed a hand on Clary's knee. Her fingers were gentle and Clary could feel the bandages affixed to her kneecaps under her jeans. "I'm sorry. You must have been in so much pain."

But Clary didn't recall the pain the most. What she recalled the most was the unwavering, bottomless fear that she would die alone in darkness. But then Knight came and she wasn't alone; he took her away from the darkness.

"Well, if the key isn't inside me then where is it?" Clary asked.

Knight shrugged. "Who knows?"

Clary didn't like this answer. "Maybe there never was a key."

Maya and Knight both shook their heads. "There's a key alright," Knight argued.

"How can you be so sure? It's a legend that nobody even believes except Valentine and _he's crazy. _Why do you think it's real when no one else does?"

Knight's eyes latched onto her own. The purple in them seemed to swirl and churn like liquid amethyst. "I know it's real because I'm the one who sealed it inside you."


	2. Chapter the Second

Chapter the Second

Clary peered across the dark wood table at the phone fixed to the wall near the stove. Her fingers itched; just one quick call. That was all it would take to tell Alec and Isabel where she was. It wasn't as if she was going to call them to tell them to get her the _hell_ out of there, like she wanted to. Knight had been very adamant about not letting her contact anyone just yet. Valentine was most likely still watching for any signs of where she was. But Clary didn't care about Valentine. If she was going to be stuck there in a squat, badly furnished flat in somewhere in the south Bronx she didn't want anyone to have to worry about her. She had already been avoiding the Institute lately, not wanting to see Jace just yet. Not until she had all her unmanageable feelings sorted out. But she wasn't making any progress with that even as she sat in Knight's kitchen eating Maya's unreasonably delicious pancakes. He was still not fitting into any neat category of 'brotherly' or 'other' no matter how hard she attempted to place him, her feelings wouldn't cooperate.

She stabbed her fork into a syrup-slick piece of pancake and sighed. How long was she going to have to stay there?

Maya was perched on a stool on the other side of the long table, knees drawn up to her chest, looking contemplatively over a book. She was biting her thumbnail and turning pages back and forth as if she were not so much reading as searching.

"What are you looking for?" Clary asked conversationally. Maya was generally quite, she noticed, but she was nice enough. Much nicer than Knight who had all but chained her to the wall and ordered her to '_stay'_ before leaving two days ago.

The girl looked up, errant blond curls falling softly into her eyes. She shook them away and cleared her throat. "Oh. Well, I was just memorizing some verses."

Clary stuck a pancake clad fork into her mouth. "From what?"

Maya laughed a nervous giggle and slid the book over to Clary's side of the table. Clary looked over the tightly spaced words and furrowed her brow, confused.

_Oh how you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of dawn!_

"The Bible? Why are you memorizing verses from the Bible? Aren't you a…" Clary trailed off, realizing for the first time that Maya didn't have any wings, nor were here eyes oddly colored in bright, unnatural hues. "You're not a witch." Clary mumbled in disbelief.

Maya nodded, still biting her thumbnail.

"But Knight said that you two were cousins."

Maya ran a hand through her hair, mussing it in a way that didn't make it any less beautiful. "We are cousins. His father is a demon and his mother is my aunt. So both my parents are mundane, but one of his isn't."

It seemed so obvious now that Maya had explained it. That was the only way they really _could_ be cousins.

"If you're a mundane, then why are you living here, in a warlock's house? Even if you are related, shouldn't you still not be able to see him? Or know anything about demons?"

Maya shifted her legs so that her bare feet dangled above the floor. Her toenails were painted a denim color that sparkled in rainbow where they caught the light. "When I was a baby my parents were killed by a demon. Knight's father took me in and raised me like I was his own daughter. He gave me the Sight young, showed me the ways of the Shadow world. When Knight and I got older and Knight began learning how to use his magic, I started feeling…out of place. I was a mundane. I didn't belong in that house of the supernatural. So I left for a while to find myself," she rubbed her throat, pale fingers caressing the ghastly marks near her collarbone. Something in her emerald eyes sparked dejectedly. "All I found was trouble. Lucky Knight was willing to take me into his home even after I ran away without warning. A person couldn't ask for more giving soul than him."

Clary rolled her fork around on her plate, averting her gaze. She had a bad feeling about the answer to the question she had brewing in her mind, but she braved it anyway. "What about his father? Knight seems pretty young to be living on his own."

Maya hesitated and Clary knew her fears were justified. "He was killed by a Shadowhunter for a crime he didn't commit. Knight was fourteen."

"Did he see him die?" Clary asked.

Maya shook her head. "No, but Knight resents the Clave now. He doesn't know why his father was accused of aiding the Circle, but he was. And even though he was charged with a lesser crime than those actually _in _the Circle, he got the most severe sentence of all."

Clary dropped her fork, appetite dissipating. "That's awful." She said softly.

Maya lower her thumb from her lips and shrugged. "It's the Clave. Justice is where justice wants to be, and usually that's not in the favor of Downworlders."

Clary looked at the pink highlighted Bible verse again, remembering Valentine and his meaning of Morgenstern. _How though have fallen from heaven._

Maya pulled the Bible back and smiled. "Anyway, it doesn't matter much any more. That was years ago. Knight still loves and misses his father, but he's not nearly as angry as he was then. Not at Shadowhunters at least."

Clary stared at her. Knight looked about her own age, but if Clary's mother had known him when Clary was only just born, that couldn't be right. Maybe time flowed more disjointedly for warlocks. It seemed unlikely.

"Maya?"

"Hmm?" She looked up again from the open Bible splayed on the table in front of her.

"How old is Knight?"

Maya sat up straight. "In human or warlock years?"

Clary was befuddled by the bizarre term. "What's a warlock year?"

"Well, sometimes warlocks use their magic to keep their bodies from aging. So in physicality they can be one age, when in actuality they can be much older."  
>"Um, human years?"<p>

Maya twisted a shining curl around her index finger. "Seventeen and a half."

"And warlock years?"

Maya bit her lip and thought hard. "Forty nine."

Clary choked on her tongue. She coughed and Maya handed her a glass of orange juice. After she forced the liquid down around the lump in her throat and stopped sputtering, she asked, "Forty _nine_?"

Maya smiled. "Yeah. After he turned sixteen he kept himself at that age for a while. Something about not wanting to grow old and spindly. But he got over that fear recently."

"And you are…?" Clary asked slowly.

"The same. I wasn't going to let him stay young and cute without me. So I got him to sprinkle some of his magic my way. But I stopped suppressing my aging the same time he did. No one really wants to live forever."

Clary set the cold glass down gradually. "So you really did know my mother."

"Not me. I was still away when Knight and Jocelyn struck that deal."

Clary thought about this. Her mother had sealed something inside of her, something magical. For all Jocelyn had done to shield Clary from the Shadow world, in the end she had hidden within her the key that could truly block her from it for good. But that couldn't have been achieved without cost…or danger.

"What did she have to pay for this deal? Money? A favor?"

Maya who had previously been calm, even as she discussed her own dark past, bristled at this question. Her eyes darted from Clary's to her own delicate hands clenched in her lap. "Payment for protecting the key was nothing. Downworlders love this world. This is their home. If Valentine forged that barrier, they would be banished from this earth. No one wanted that, least of all Knight. He didn't want to be separated from me. I'm the only family he has left."

Clary nodded, understanding fully.

"But," Maya continued. "he also didn't want to charge her not only because what she was doing was for the good of all Downworlders, but because Jocelyn was risking so much by sacrificing her daughter—"

"Wait. What do you mean by sacrificing her daughter?"

Maya pursed her lips as if she had spoken too much. Clary glared at her. Even though Maya was kind, Clary didn't appreciate her evasions.

"You take me here, keep me _prisoner_, tell me these things about my mother and a key she put inside me, about Valentine, and now I find out there was a danger to me? What danger was there? What sacrifice? Tell me." Clary's tone was harsh, but she didn't care.

Maya sighed. The green in her eyes dulled, like the sun that hid behind them, making them glitter, had been smothered by storm clouds. "There was a risk taken by sealing the key in your heart. Nothing like that had ever been done before. Trapping a physical object within someone's body…an unheard of practice. But Knight was confident that you would be safe. There would be pain, he knew. And it could have been fatal if not done precisely. He was careful."

Clary's fingers gripped the chipped wooden edge of her chair tightly. Her heart throbbed like it was uncomfortable knowing that there was something foreign inside it. Clary's hand came to her chest again and underneath the bandages she could sense the heat and uneven beating of the organ that had been tampered with inside of her.

"My heartbeat is uneven. When I was young the doctor said it was a heart murmur. But it isn't. The key _broke_ it." The memory of the sterile, rubber smelling office came back in a rush. Her mother looking frantically to the frustratingly impassive doctor, asking if he was certain that was the problem. If her heartbeat truly was unnatural. And the days after, her mother's cold hands taking her pulse at night, whispering that she would be fine, cradling her to her chest so Clary's ear was pressed against her mother's chest to hear the natural rhythm of a heart that would never be her own.

Maya's eyes were so full of sympathy it made Clary sick. She stood suddenly, heated with anger and feeling the awful sting of tears touch the corners of her eyes. "Let me use the phone."

Maya appeared shocked. "I-I can't. Valentine—"

"To hell with Valentine! Let me call my friends. I want to tell them I'm okay. I need to talk to Luke and call the Institute. I need…" her voice faded and insistence when Maya gravely shook her head.

"Clary," her voice was painfully gentle. "You can't call the Institute. That's the first place Valentine would check. Do you understand that he wants to _kill you_? He doesn't care that you're his daughter. That key is more important to him than anything right now."

The tears that had been threatening to fall were now flowing freely, fueled by her flurry of anger and hurt. How could her mother do this to her? She was scarred. She was broken. She could have been killed and all for the sake of saving a few Downworlders.

Maya stood up and approached her. Clary stepped back. "Leave me alone."

The girl halted, embrace-ready hands falling to her sides. She looked hurt but Clary didn't care. She wasn't the one with the broken heart.

"I'll be in my room." Clary spun around, embarrassed by how hard she was crying, and ran up the awkward spiral of metal stairs to her room.

It was nice of Knight to have provided her with a room of her own, but it only made her feel less like a welcome guest and more like a confined prisoner. It seemed as if the light gray walls were leaning in on her, suffocating her. The three chandeliers hanging unusually low from the ceiling shook loudly when she slammed the door, and threw quivering flecks of rainbow against every surface.

Clary sunk down on the carpet beside her bed. The tears had slowed but her pain wasn't ebbing away. Her mother had used her as a sacrifice. Her own mother had given her safety, thrown it to the hands of fate and a pair of crossed fingers. Clary raised her hands. The scrapes on her palms were fading—only vague purple lines remained. She imagined silver cuffs restraining her, chaining her unbreakably to the wall the way Valentine had done to her mother.

"I have to get out of here." Clary resolved. She didn't owe anything to Knight. He had saved her life, but he'd also almost killed her. She supposed that made them even.

She stood quickly, wiping away the ugly streaks her tears had left behind, and stepped to the single window embedded in the wall. The white paint on the frame was slightly fresh. It made for a sticky, mildly resistant opening, but Clary managed. She shoved the frame up as high as it could go and stuck her head out. Below, a trash decorated alley sporting a fair amount of graffiti and suspicious looking puddles greeted her. She placed one cautious foot out onto the rusty fire escape and, balancing her weight, pulled the rest of her body out into the cold morning drizzle. She shivered as a breeze bellowed past her, whipping red strands of hair into her eyes. She was dressed in an oversized T-shirt, a different one from the one Knight had given her when she arrived, and a loose black jeans she could only guess belonged to Maya. At least she had her own shoes.

The fire escape looked like it hadn't been used in decades. There was barely any black left on the rust encrusted beams and the structure wobbled perilously in the wind.

Clary descended carefully. Her foot slipped a few times and she came dangerously close to being thrown off when a blast of wind rocked the construction so violently she had to hang on by her fingers. _Leave it to a warlock_, she thought bitterly when her feet finally met the ground, _to chose a flat on the thirtieth floor_.

Clary pulled her shirt down and smoothed out the front, as if her hands were enough to extract the ground in rust and rain. She knew New York well, she thought. Well enough to take the subway to Simon's from wherever she was. But if Simon wasn't home—which was as unlikely as a hermit crab leaving its shell out of mating season—she'd go to the hospital. She wanted to see her mother again anyway. Clary assumed that being in her presence would bring her some gratification, some comfort in her mother's unspoken explanation. The sky was a formidable gray-white that was growing darker with each second she stood contemplating what to do.

A man she hadn't noticed walked toward her on her left. His ratty hood hid most of his features in a dark shadow, but Clary could tell by the faint greenish tint shining just under the pastel skin of his hand, that he was a Downworlder. His footsteps were heavy, labored and thudding, as he walked up to her. Clary assessed him with reservation. She hoped Knight didn't have people waiting outside her window for the moment she tried to escape. But she could tell by the way the stranger gurgled a sardonic laugh under his breath, that he probably wasn't affiliated with Knight.

"What do you want?" Clary's voice was brave despite the escalation in her pulse. _Tick tock tock…tick._ An uneven thudding that she was now hyper aware of.

"Clarissa Morgenstern," a raspy smoker's voice whispered with a puff of crystallized breath.

_Tick tock tock tock…tick tick tock. _Clary's pulse spiraled out of control. Morgenstern. He'd called her Morgenstern. He was sent by Valentine.

Clary took a step back and the man imitated her with a step forward. "What do you want?" she repeated in a less stable voice.

"The key. The key, young Morgenstern. His Lordship is in need of the key."

Clary stepped back again and the man stepped forward. Her pulse was a hard thudding pressure in her ears. She didn't know what to do. She wasn't a Shadowhunter, not really; Jace and the others had taken the lead in similar situations in the past. But now she was on her own. Jace wasn't going to magically come swinging to her rescue out of the mist like her knight on a gilded motorcycle. Not this time.

Another step backward and her back was against the brick of a building. Her brain was rotating around the memory of her and Jace in the vampires' lair that night they had to save Simon. Then she'd had him and a dagger for protection. Now she had nothing.

"I don't have it." Clary said evenly.

The stranger wasn't deterred. "_The key_."

Clary shut her eyes tightly. He was going to take her back to that dark place. Back to that cold place of nowhere with all the pain and blood and nothingness.

Then there was the same sound as before. The grating sound of a sword being exposed from a hard sheath. Clary opened her eyes and saw Knight burring his blade up to the gold and onyx guard in the Downworlder's chest. The hooded man let out a screech like a dying wolverine, a primitive howl mixed with the sharp panging cry of man. Knight put a boot to the man's chest and yanked his sword free. The blood dripping from the otherwise gleaming metal was black and inky as death.

The man folded inward until nothing was left but an insignificant scorch. Knight frowned at his dripping sword and tilted it forward, letting the rain water glide down the blade, washing away the sticky black blood.

Clary was panting, staring at him. "Knight,"

He looked at her indifferently. "I told you to stay inside."

She tried to speak, but her voice was lost. He snapped his broad sword back into its sheath on his back. "Lucky I came back when I did."

"Again." She breathed when she found her voice once more.

"What?"

"You saved me again." She looked at him. Rain drops pattered down his angular cheeks and caught like crystals in his eyelashes.

His hair was soaked, tendrils of blue and green and black fell like dampened strings into his face. His reached up a hand to move them away. "Of course."

"What do you mean 'of course'?"

Knight smiled in a half pained way that imposed on Clary a sudden wave of deep rooted guilt that she didn't understand. "As long as there is breath in my lungs," Knight said in a voice as serious and steely as a gun. "I will never let you hurt again. I know Maya told you about the key and how dangerous it was to put inside you, and I know your heart is broken because of it. You could have died and it was _not_ my decision to make whether or not that mattered. So as long as I breathe and my heart beats the way yours does not, I will never again let pain touch your heart. I swear it on the Angel and I swear it on my own life."

Clary's voice was gone again. His words had washed all her thoughts away like they had the all-erasing power of rain. He motioned for her to follow him and she did, without sound or protest, to the metal door underneath the fire escape. He unlocked it and led the way up the stairs back to his house.


	3. Chapter the Third

Chapter the Third

"_Nice? Kittens are nice. Warlocks are…not." –Alec Lightwood_

Fitful in sleep, Clary stared at the flawless paint of the ceiling, studying the shimmering shape of one of the crystals on a chandelier. It was dawn, she realized by the pink light softly playing around the edges of her window, bouncing off the crystals. Clary brought her hand up to her face again—the cuts were gone now. She dropped it onto the feather-stuffed blankets without surprise. Superficial injuries generally healed in two weeks anyway.

_Two weeks._

Clary missed her home, which wasn't in one set place. It was the hospital chair near her mother's bed and beside Luke who comforted her when he could see the ghost of pain in her eyes. It was on the steps of the Institute, not bothering to undo the glamour because she'd never be brave enough to take the step that would place her inside anyway. It was on Simon's bed just thinking while he just thought beside her, playing with her hair in an affectionate way the felt familiar and warm. It was all the places that held the people she loved. It wasn't here in this gray room that didn't do anything but make her crazy.

Knight had gone again and only just returned that morning. No big surprise. Maya assured her that he had important business elsewhere that needed to be tended to immediately. Clary hadn't acknowledged her explanation. She still wasn't speaking to Maya unless it was of the annual plea to use the phone. Clary would have simply waited until Maya was asleep and then snuck into the kitchen to call Luke's cell. She _would_ have done that if there weren't a magical lock that kept her fingers from being able to lift the phone from its base.

_Stupid Knight, _Clary couldn't help but hate him. All she wanted to do was to hear a familiar voice in her ear, even if it wasn't the frantic voice of someone worried and coming to save her. She didn't need to be saved. She just needed to not be alone.

She closed her eyes and wondered what was happening inside the walls of the Institute. Were they on a mission? Was Alec still wobbling around on crutches? Was Jace…

_No_. She denied the question in the back of her mind access to her consciousness. She wasn't going to think things like that, not about Jace. She longed for the time before when she could allow any thoughts to cross her mind and not having to screen each one to see if it was appropriate to be thinking. But nowadays the word Jace in her brain was always accompanied by an awkward feeling of confusion in her stomach and a strain to block out the unsavory thought in her mind. Jace: her brother but not. He wasn't her brother like Alec and Isabelle were brother and sister. She didn't know him that way, she hadn't grown up beside him, hadn't shared the space of memories of when she was young with his image. He gad been a complete and utter stranger to her until Pandemonium. But they were related in the only way that did matter. DNA. They were blood, they had the same biological parents. It wasn't a subjective situation where either stance could be taken on morality because they were only related by law or marriage. There was a barrier of appropriateness between them forged by God. A barrier that wanting alone couldn't do anything to break.

If there was any way for her to die and be brought back as a completely different person, she would have gladly driven a knife through her chest. _That_ was how much she wanted it.

Clary picked up one of the many pillows—excessiveness seemed to be a theme—and placed its cool silk fabric over her hot face. Behind her eyelids Jace's image wouldn't waver. She growled and threw it across the room, frustrated by how little control she had over her own mind. She remembered a time that Jace would have been arrogantly thrilled by her constant thinking of him, but now he'd most likely be horrified. _She_ was horrified. It was all just so horrific.

This was all Valentine's doing. If he hadn't been such a power hungry liar she would have at least known Jace was his son and things wouldn't have gone as far as they had. But now that things were far far gone, there was no going back.

There was a knock at her door. Not the timid tentative knock of Maya, but an insistent banging. Clary opened the door to a pair of very tired lavender eyes. Knight looked as if _she_ were the one who had disturbed _him_.

"What is it?" she asked.

He let his eyelids droop further. Dark circles rimmed the undersides of his eyes like dark crescent moons. "Do you have a homing chip in you tooth or something?"

Clary blinked at him. "_What_?"

His face hardened and a small line set between his brows. "You have company, I believe."

Clary looked over him. His hair was exploding in every direction, blues and greens sticking every which way. His jeans looked stiff, as if he'd been in the rain all day, and his shirt was for whatever reason absent, exposing his muscles. She tried not to stare. "Company?" her voice cracked slightly when she tore her eyes away from his stomach.

Knight sighed and pointed to the metal spiral of stairs in the center of the floor leading down to the middle of the lower level. Clary pulled her shirt down, a gesture that she hoped would straighten it, and started down the squealing steps. She froze on the last bend, staring into the foyer like there were demons dancing on the marble desks waving torches. There _was_ someone sitting on one of the marble surfaces, but it wasn't a demon.

"Jace?"

He looked up and Clary almost fell off the stairs with how happy she was to see him. He was flipping a blade between his fingers and was clearly dressed for confrontation. The hilts of daggers protruded from his belt. He watched her without a word as she scrambled down the last of the stairs, Knight trailing silently behind her. His face was stoic and unreadable, as always, save for the slight tremor of a vein at his temple.

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you." Clary couldn't control her joy. Finally, after two hellish weeks of having no one, he was there, sitting right in front of her. Not just a dream, but real. She felt as if she had been trapped in a bad episode of the Twilight Zone and the show was finally over.

Knight materialized at her right and crossed his arms. "Nice to know that one of us is." He said generally.

Jace hopped down from the desk and hesitated. His face was still a mask of calm, but his eyes flicked from Clary to Knight and back. His mouth set into a hard line. Clary looked down and noticed for the first time all night that her shorts were completely covered by her shirt, making it appear as if she weren't wearing pants at all, and with Knight being shirtless….

"No, it's not what you think." She said quickly.

Jace merely smirked that horrible way he did when he was hurt and trying to hide it. "I don't know what you're talking about. I was worried, you know. Simon calls me all angry, thinking _I'm_ the reason he hasn't been able to find you. I didn't even know you were missing. You disappear without a trace and what are we suppose to think? Alec and Isabelle have been looking nonstop for days now. I was thinking of calling the Clave, thinking that Valentine may have…but it seems like you're fine." His last sentence had an unperceivable trace of acidity.

Clary shook her head blankly. "No. No Jace you don't understand. Valentine did have me. He would have killed me if Knight hadn't saved me. I couldn't call anyone because Knight was afraid Valentine might still be watching to see where I was. I wanted to call._ I wanted to_." Her words were shaky and pleading, but she didn't know what she was pleading for. For him not to be mad, maybe. For him to understand how much she wanted to contact them. How sorry she was that she hadn't been able find a way to. For him to not look at her so…so betrayed.

Jace shrugged. He pocketed his dagger and threw his glance over Knight. Clary could feel him tighten at her side and remembered Maya's words. _He's not nearly as angry as he was then. Not at Shadowhunters at least. _But Knight appeared just as angry as he could ever have possibly been. Maybe he was just cranky from being disturbed. His wings flapped softly.

"That explanation is sadly believable. You always need saving." Jace laughed without humor.

Clary looked down. Her face was warm and overly telling.

"So are going to stay here?" Jace's voice was improperly amused and he swiped his finger over the marble of the desk behind him.

"No." Clary answered immediately.

"Yes." Knight said at the same time.

Clary turned a fearsome glare on him. "_Yes?_" She couldn't believe that he wanted her to stay longer.

Knight sniffed, as if he were getting sick, and spoke to Clary even though his eyes remained on Jace. "It's not safe for you to leave just yet. Maybe another week to a month could be—"

Clary interrupted him, hating him more and more with every word that left his lips. "A month? What are you talking about? It's not like this place is some huge secret. Valentine's men are crawling all over the allies outside just waiting for me to leave. Why is it so important for me to stay _here_. Can't I just stay indoors at my own…?" she trailed off, not sure if the word 'house' would be fitting.

Knight scowled at Jace like he had been the one to interrupt him. "No. They may be waiting out there, but this flat is jinxed. They can't get inside. For now, this is the safest place to be."

Jace raised an eyebrow. "Jinxed? Such an old fashion term." It was the first time he had acknowledged Knight through the whole ordeal.

"You weren't expecting me to say 'charmed' were you? I don't use Shadowhunter words."

"And why is that, may I ask?"

"Because Shadowhunters don't really sit well with me. Nothing personal." He smiled mockingly.

Jace smiled back, just as scornful. "Well then I guess I'm lucky I'm standing, aren't I?"

Knight's smile tightened. "You think you're funny, kid?"

"Well I don't like to brag—"

"Will you two stop it?" Clary yelled. She didn't like the turn the conversation had taken. She turned to Jace. "I'm coming with you." And then to Knight. "I'm going. Please don't try to stop me."

Knight shrugged. "I wasn't planning to. I'll only follow you anyway."

Clary appeared horrified. "What?"

"I swore I'd protect you, remember?"

Clary could feel the skin of her face growing hot with frustration. "I don't need you to protect me."

"That's not the point."

"What are you talking about? What's the point then?" Her voice rose as her anger increased.

"I swore on the Angel and my own life that pain would never touch your heart,"

"How noble." Jace muttered sarcastically.

Knight ignored him. "So whether you feel it's necessary or not, I have to make sure that oath is kept."

"What worth does the oath of a warlock have anyway?" Jace asked.

Knight narrowed his eyes. The lavender in them was churning again. "As much worth as any oath you take, Shadowhunter."

Clary wasn't paying attention to the resentment rolling thickly in the air between Jace and Knight. "You're joking, right? So you're going to hover around me forever?"

"No," Knight flapped his wings in a nervous way. "just until the key is found. Once Valentine understands that the key isn't inside you, he won't come after you again. Or so I hope."

Clary rubbed her palm across her forehead. She couldn't remember a time that she had ever been that frustrated. Jace, however, was oddly calm. "He can come. It doesn't make much of a difference to me."

Clary stared at him, confused by his acceptance. But his face was, as usual, without any telling of the feelings below. She sighed, defeated. "Fine."

Knight walked toward the stairs, hands buried in his pockets. "I wasn't asking for your permission, Shadowhunter. But I guess it's good that I have it. I'd hate for there to be a reason for you to try and kill me. I know how eager your kind is to kill."

Jace smirked. "Bitter, are we?"

Knight didn't reply. He climbed the stairs at a painfully slow pace that left Clary irritable. She hadn't breathed outside air for over ten days. She just wanted to get outside. Jace leaned against the door, silently surveying the foyer while Clary just enjoyed his being there.

"How did you know where I was?" She asked once four minutes had crawled by without producing Knight.

Jace fixed his gaze straight ahead, obviously making a point to not looking at her. "Magnus."

She blinked. "Magnus?" She couldn't imagine Jace going to Magnus for anything, or the warlock complying.

Jace sighed and moved his gaze upward. "Actually, Alec had to ask him. He wouldn't even open the door when I went over there. But we eventually got him to find out where you were. Once he figured out you were near a warlock it was easy. There are only so many in New York, and even fewer who wouldn't use your bones for potions."

She studied his face but found no emotion to go with his flat words. After a long moment he spoke again. "You could have called." His volume was low.

A lump formed in Clary's throat, but she spoke around it. "I wanted to."

"I would have come earlier if you had only called,"

"I know."

Jace continued to not look at her. His tone was still unemotional. "I was worried. We all were."

"I know." Clary swallowed hard. The lump had increased in size. It was choking her.

Finally, he turned. His eyes were so unusually sad, so filled with hurt, that for an instant Clary couldn't breath. "I thought you were dead."

She tried to speak, tried to apologize, to say something—_anything_—but she couldn't. Neither of them said a word until a distinctive clang resonated through the foyer, breaking the silence and putting Jace back behind his masks.

Knight dropped through the center of the stairs. He landed stealthily, boots making no sound against the wood flooring. He had a simple backpack dangling from one shoulder, stuffed to the point where the zipper appeared to be straining to hold either opening together, and his sword on the other. To Clary's surprise, that was all he had.

"That's all you need?" she asked.

For a moment he was confused. "What else would I need?"

"How about a perch to sleep on?" Jace asked cynically.

Clary heard a sharp intake of breath, but other than that, Knight made no acknowledgement of his comment. He had on an unzipped leather jacket now, but still no shirt. His hair was brushed back into its spiky state. "So are we going or what?"

Jace pushed himself off from the door and pulled it open. "After you." He said to Clary with a bow.

She looked down at her clothes and sighed. There was not much that could be done about her lack of better clothing now. She pulled on her shoes resting ready by the door for her next escape attempt, and led the way out into the hall. Clary had never seen the halls of Knight's building before. They were strangely office-like with commercial carpet and florescent lighting embedded into foam ceiling. At the end of the short hallway was a metallic elevator. Knight pushed the button for lobby on the equally shinning panel and waited. His wings flapped again.

The silence was so painful, Clary had to ask, "Are you invisible right now?" she looked at Knight, and more specifically, his batty wings.

"To mundanes, yeah."

"Is there anyway for Downworlders to let themselves become visible?"

Knight blew a tired breath of air up into the hair that fell in his eyes. "Sure. I don't know about any other species, but warlocks and witches can perform spells and glamour to make ourselves visible."

The elevator pinged open, shining golden doors sliding out of the way of an empty space. Knight folded his wings into almost nonexistence and stepped inside. Clary followed, ensuring that she placed herself between Knight and Jace, not wanting anything confrontational to erupt in the small space. "But Maya can see you," She said once the doors had shut.

He nodded, looking away. "She has the Sight."

Jace who was studiously ignoring the both of them, became immediately interested at this remark. "The Sight? This Maya, she wouldn't happen to be a mundane would she?"

Clary was suddenly nervous. Maybe she shouldn't have brought up Maya. But Knight didn't seem concerned. "She is."

Jace's voice was falsely chastising. "Giving mundanes the Sight. I doubt the Clave would be too happy to know about that."

"What do I care about the Clave?"

"I don't know, but it should be a lot considering the penalty for such a thing." Jace replied.

Clary bit her lip, uneasy, at the tension. "Your not going to tell them, are you Jace?"

Whatever pleasure that had held in his features from knowing that he had a power over Knight faded. He shrugged. "No. I don't really care."

The doors opened to a checker tiled lobby with a huge crystal chandelier dangling from the ceiling. The pearly walls were cluttered with ornate frames craddeling images of places and unfamiliar people. Mundanes moved to and from the rotating glass doors leading out into the morning rain. Clary sighed, wishing that she'd at least worn something warmer than shorts.

Jace pulled up his hood and moved ahead of them, cresting through the doors without a backwards glance. Clary started to follow, but Knight stopped her with a firm grip on her arm.

"First," he said and waved his fingers up and down through the air in front of her. Pants and a hooded sweatshirt formed over her skin with a cool tingle. "Better?" he asked.

Clary nodded, dazed by the tingling sensation clouding her head and tickling her skin.

"Next," he put both his hands together and drew them apart. An umbrella dangled from his fingers. He placed it in her hands. The skin of his palms was hot and static-like.

"I've never seen someone do magic before." Clary said blankly, still marginally dazed.

He chuckled and pushed her toward the doors. Jace was waiting out front, leaning idly against his motorcycle. He arched a perfect brow at her clothing. "That was the quickest wardrobe change I ever saw."

"You flew here?" She asked once she noticed the shinning body of the bike parked behind a beat up VW.

Jace answered her by getting on and motioning that she sit behind him. Clary couldn't help but smile. She collapsed the umbrella and handed it to Knight, drawing up the impermeable fabric of her hood. She sat eagerly behind Jace and placed her hands around the width of his belt, a wave of familiarity washing over her like a warm, comforting blanket. He twisted his stele in the ignition and the bike snarled at full volume before beginning to rise; an inch of air wedged itself between them and the ground. Clary curled her fingers tighter around his belt, trying not to laugh aloud. How long had she waited for this moment? It felt like forever.

"Try to keep up." He said to Knight before throwing the throttle back completely. Speed and a pleasant surge of fear burst in Clary's stomach as they turned vertical. The air around her was like a blinding rush of color and sound as they shot ever upward. They leveled out once they reached the top of the building. Jace teased the throttle, making the bike to growl loudly a few times.

Clary whipped her head around, searching the topaz sky for Knight. He dropped down suddenly beside her. The orange light in the air reflected beautifully off the surface of his outstretched wings. She stared at them, marveling at how elegant they were.

"Where are we going?" Clary asked over the rumbling of the engine, moving her gaze to the huge city splayed below.

"Home." Jace answered.

"And where is that exactly?" Knight inquired.

"The Institute."

Clary smiled to herself. The Institute. She would see Alec and Isabelle soon, and Simon and Luke. Jace had come to take her home just like she dreamed every night since her failed escape. Everything would be fine now. Or at least, that's what _she_ thought. Knight, on the other hand, knew better. He could sense the danger set on the horizon where the sun was blooming, casting the whole city in the tone of a pale but unearthly fuchsia.

"So what's all this about a key?" Jace asked once they were in motion again.

"Oh," Clary thought for a moment on how to go about explaining, but the unexplainably nice sensation in her chest and the sharp gusts of wind against her face, curling around the stray strands of her hair and whipping them into her eyes, were too distracting. "I'll tell you when we get there."


	4. Chapter the Fourth

Chapter the Fourth

"_All knowledge hurts." — Magnus Bane_

The Institute stood like a sharp, dark wound on the skin of the pink horizon. At the sight of it, Clary's hands clenched tighter around Jace's waist. They descended in front of the building onto an empty street and Jace cut the engine on his bike. Everything was silent but the beating of Knight's wings which died when he touched down on the sidewalk beside them. Clary looked up at the lumbering building with a vague sense of nostalgia.

"So this is the Institute?" Knight crossed his arms as he took in the building.

Clary nodded, then turned to Jace who seemed to be waiting for something.

"Can we all go in? I mean, is Knight allowed?"

Jace shrugged apathetically. "Technically, no. But I figured Alec and Izzy could just meet us out here."

Clary furrowed her brows in confusion. "Meet us for what?"

Jace set his jaw and looked at Knight, like he was the one annoying him with questions. She guessed he was just irritated by the warlock's presence, or maybe it was something more than that. Something about the way Jace's eyes cut up and down Knight's form spoke of deep distrust.

"To talk about why a warlock was holding you hostage for two weeks."

Clary's mouth fell open for a fraction of a second, then she snapped it closed in anger. "We just talked about this! Knight saved my life—twice. He wasn't 'holding me hostage,' he was keeping me away from Valentine."

"Speaking of Valentine," Jace walked forward slowly. He looked down at Clary with an emotion she couldn't place. "What is all this about a key?"

Clary hesitated, looking back at Knight. He flapped his wings; she noticed he did that whenever he was nervous or thoughtful. In this case, she guessed it was both.

"You've probably heard the legend, the one about the Key from the dreams of the Angel." Knight said.

Jace's eyes widened, then narrowed. "Oh, come on. Where have you been for the last one thousand years? That Key is just—"

"A legend."

Clary turned around to the door of the Institute where the voice had come from. Alec descended down the steps of the enormous church building. He was dressed in black, but it was not Shadowhunter gear; instead of the tough, resilient fabric that Shadowhunters wore whenever they went into battle, it was a loose cotton shirt and denim jeans. He walked up to them with his hands in his pockets, his eyes remaining on Knight.

"Alec," Clary couldn't help but smile, seeing him walking without his crutches, though she did notice that he was limping slightly. "You know about the Key?"

"Of course I do," He glanced at Jace with humor. "Everybody's heard that myth."

"And that's exactly what it is," Jace said. "A myth."

Knight looked from Alec to Jace and then to Clary. He gave her a pleading look, as if silently asking for help, and then said, "The Key exists. I know for certain that's true."

Jace scoffed. "And how exactly do you know that?"

"I've seen it before. Held it in my hands."

"How do you know that was the Gatekeeper's Solace?" Jace raised an eyebrow. "How do you know that wasn't any old key?"

"Well, for one thing, Valentine tore her heart out to get it."

A dark shadow crept over Jace's features. He opened his mouth to speak, then fell silent. Alec interjected, "Tore her heart out?"

Knight sighed and leaned back against the rough wall of the Institute. "When Clary was a baby, Jocelyn was in possession of the Key. Valentine stole it from Idris—" He paused when Jace made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat. "And gave it to his wife. He knew it could seal off all the dimensions to this world and get rid of demons for good, but he wasn't interested in that. He believed it could create a barrier between humans and Downworlders. He wanted to seal them away from this world instead. So Jocelyn came to me when Clary was a baby and asked me for a favor. She wanted me to hide the Key from Valentine where he would never think to look for it."

"Inside my heart," Clary said softly.

Jace and Alec didn't speak for a while. Clary looked nervously at Knight who waited without expression. Then the Institute door banged open and Isabelle came bouncing down the steps. Her hair was pulled back into a long braid and she was wearing a deep blue dress that fell flatteringly over her body.

She frowned at them from the bottom step. "What's going on out here? No one invited me to this party."

"Actually," Alec shook his head. "I called you down about fifteen minutes—"

"It doesn't matter," Jace stepped forward until he stood directly in front of Knight. "There's no party. It's just a dangerous insane young man, and a terribly confused little girl."

Isabelle looked thoughtful for a beat. "Sounds like a party to me."

Suddenly, Clary realized what that emotion was that she hadn't been able to identify in Jace's eyes. He had been looking at her with an expression of careful pity. He thought she was deceived, possibly even a little crazy herself. And he felt sorry for her.

She pushed herself between Knight and Jace, looking up into her brother's flashing gold eyes. "He is not crazy. And neither am I."

"I never said—"

"I know what you never said. Now listen to what I'm saying. He's telling the truth," She looked at each of them, Alec who was watching in silence, Isabelle who was obviously confused, and back at Jace who was glaring at her. "I know it. Two weeks ago, I woke up to the sounds of a demon. It wanted the Key, and it spoke of Valentine. I _felt _my chest open and I know if it had wanted to, it could have killed me. But it needed me alive to tell it where the Key was."

"Clary," Alec spoke softly. "There _is _no key. The Gatekeeper's Solace is only a story they tell to Shadowhunter children. Besides, it's impossible put a physical object inside someone's heart. It would kill them."

"Why would Jocelyn do that?" Isabelle asked. "Why would she put a _key_ in her own daughter's body? It doesn't make sense."

Knight flapped his wings again. "The idea was that Valentine would have to kill Clary to get the Key out, and that he never would. Jocelyn assumed Valentine would find the Key wherever it was hidden whether in the mundane world or in Idris, so she thought hiding it in a place impossible to get to would keep it safe."

"Why not just destroy it?" Jace's voice was filled with acid. "If I believe you—which I don't—it still doesn't seem reasonable to take such a huge risk when she could have just as easily burned the Key. And there was, right? A risk?"

Knight looked down. He spoke in a whisper. "Nothing great can be done without risk."

Jace ignored him. "Plus, you obviously don't know Valentine very well if you think he wouldn't kill Clary to get the Key. He'd kill anyone to get what he wanted."

Knight met his burning glare calmly. "Yet he didn't."

Jace blinked. "What?"

"He had Clary, he had the opportunity to kill her if he felt the urge to, but he didn't."

Jace had no answer to that. He only turned around and walked back to Alec, who had been watching them both with a worried expression.

"The Key," Knight said. "Is indestructible. It's made of Black Iron, the kind only found at the center of the earth. It can never be destroyed, only hidden. Jocelyn had a responsibility when Valentine handed her that Key, a responsibility to make sure he never got it. She told me she trusted that I could preform the insertion and that I would never crumble under torture and betray her. Inserting a physical object into a physical object is complex. It isn't like changing materials into different materials or moving something from one place to another. To do an insertion you need..."

Jace turned and looked at him. "What? You need what?"

Knight's eyes met Clary's for a split second, then looked at the ground. In that tiny moment, his lavender eyes had been filled with many emotions, some she didn't know. But the most prominent one, the one that made her want to jump in and end the conversation before he spoke again, was fear. She had never seen Knight afraid before. To think of what he could be afraid of made her skin prickle with nervous sweat.

"You need dark magic."

"Dark magic?" Alec's face had gone paler than normal. "That's forbidden. It's Clave law."

"I know," Knight sighed and mussed his hair. The sunlight danced in the blues and greens, making them shine. "I know. But it had to be done."

Jace spoke up. "Let me get this straight. The Gatekeeper's Solace is real and Valentine wants it so he can banish the Downworlders. So Jocelyn put it in Clary's heart to keep it away from him. Now Valentine knows and wants the Key...stop me if I'm wrong.

Knight shook his head and Jace continued.

"So he opened her chest where this Key was supposed to be and found what?"

"Nothing," Knight whispered. He narrowed his eyes at the floor as if his own words confused him. "It was moved."

"_Moved?"_ Jace laughed. "This just keeps getting better and better. So if it's '_moved_' where is it now? More importantly, what does he still want with Clary?"

"The situation is complicated. Valentine thinks Clary knows where the Key is, that she's the one who moved it. But that's not true," His eyes darkened. "There has to be another warlock using dark magic, one who knows about the Key and wants it for himself."

"Why?" Isabelle asked. "What use would a warlock have for something like that?"

"It's original use," Knight said gravely. "To seal this world off from demons."

"Does your kind really care so much about demons?" Isabelle cocked her head to the side.

"No," Clary breathed. She felt as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs, like she was drowning. Everything fell into place in her mind. Knight's voice came forward from her memories and filled her head with the terrible truth. _The Key would allow for Shadowhunters to control the barriers of worlds, but it is a double edged sword. If the barriers were sealed and no more demons plagued the earths of which they did not belong, Shadowhunters themselves would become obsolete. _"They want to erase the Shadowhunters."

Isabelle gasped. "What! How? How is that possible?"

The sun had fully risen and threw them all into the shadow of the building. In the new darkness, Knight's eyes seemed to glow. "It's your job to rid the world of demons, your purpose, right? So if there were no more demons, that would mean the world wouldn't need you anymore."

"That's nonsense," Jace said in a rush. Something about the way he was looking at Knight told Clary that he half believed him and half didn't want to. "There's no way you could erase the Shadowhunters. Our bloodlines will pass on, Key or no Key."

"True," Knight said evenly. "But to what end? What would your reason for existing be if not to fight demons?"

Jace took a deep breath and regained his calm. "Well for one thing, to keep law breaking Downworlders like you out of our cities and in jail where you belong."

Alec placed a hand on Jace's shoulder. "Jace, no. Let's hear him out."

"I've heard enough. There's no Key, no danger. Just a scared kid trying to bury his criminal past under a bunch of excuses and lies."

Clary felt her pulse race as she said, "If you're not going to believe us, not going to believe _me_, then forget it. Believe what you want, Jace."

She saw him now, standing like a gold statue in the sunlight, as if through a pane of thick distorting glass. She couldn't see him clearly, couldn't reach him, no matter how hard she tried or how long and loud she yelled. It has always been this way, even before this whole thing with Knight and the Key. He kept at a distance, emotionally and sometimes physically. She had thought that maybe after what happened at Renwicks...but no. He was still Jace at heart, still the same arrogant, stoic boy with the heavy sarcastic wit, the occasional rude comment, anything to cover up what was really underneath his armor. A boy who she didn't know but desperately wanted to. Valentine's son, her brother...the boy she...

Something slammed into her side, throwing her off balance too fast for her to react. She fell hard on the concrete, something heavy and warm settled on top of her. She looked up expecting to see Knight, but saw Jace instead. He was turned back, looking at what had descended from sky along with the filthy, rotting smell of demons.

Alec had drawn a seraph blade and Isabelle was grabbing for her whip hidden up underneath the hem of her dress. The demon that had fallen blinked at her with its single red eye. It opened its mouth and let out a high hissing noise that sent a shooting pain through her eardrums. She cringed and twisted away from the sound.

Jace was on his feet in a second. "Stay down," He ordered and then charged forward, his own seraph blade drawn. "_Astaroth._" He named it through gritted teeth.

Alec had managed to cut deep into the thing's deep green skin and it was leaking black ichor onto the street. Isabelle recoiled her whip and flung it forward, the leather flashing across the demon's body and leaving a deep gash behind. Then Jace moved in, his footsteps lithe and quick, ducking underneath one of its outstretched arms to plunge his blade into the center of the demon's chest. Right through it's heart.

It squealed another high hiss, but this time Clary noticed meaning in the noise. A single word like the whisper of a breeze. "_Kkkkkkkkeyyyyyyy."_

Then it died, folding up on itself until nothing was left but a pile of ichor and dark slime.

Jace stared at the spot where it had been, then turned Clary who was still panting on the concrete behind him. He faced Knight who had been watching the whole ordeal with mute interest. "Suppose I believe you. What are we supposed to do...about protecting her?"

Knight spoke simply. "We find the warlock who has it, get it back, and let Valentine know that Clary hasn't got it anymore. We let him know who really has it an he'll leave her alone, chase them instead."

"But who do we give it to? Who would knowingly volunteer to be murderously stalked by Valentine?" Jace wanted to know.

Knight smiled morbidly and that smile, dark and lovely, sent shivers up Clary's spine.

"Me, of course."


End file.
